Your credit history says it all about you.
All financial decisions are affected by this history.
It tells a company whether they should consider you as a potential client or not.
It is important that you understand your credit history and what it means.
Your credit report is an open book of your financial life.
It reveals all your dealings - good or otherwise.
Your score which is based on this report is called the FICO score and a high FICO score ensures a good report.
The three major credit bureaus who do the reports are Experian (formerly TRW), Equifax and TransUnion.
Lenders contact these agencies for a copy of your credit report.
Since your score is of paramount importance in your financial world, it is important that you read it yourself and keep yourself up-to-date and ensure mistakes if any, are corrected.
A less than good score will result in you being rejected for a credit card or if you do get one, it would come to you with a higher rate of interest.
Problems have this knack of remaining on your report for a long time even after being sorted out.
Since your payment history is what influences your score it is imperative that you maintain a good payment schedule and stick by it.
Your total outstanding debt is also a factor affecting the score.
It would include the outstanding on loans, card limits, other card balances etc.
All these have a negative effect on your score.
One might think then that it better to have no credit history, therefore no negative impact.
But this line of thought is erroneous.
If there is no history then the lenders have no idea on what to base their decisions.
So once again you are considered a risk.
Credit bureaus have to, by law, give their clients a copy of their history though they charge for the FICO score.
Call any of them for details.